Hidden Truths (Intertwined Souls Series Book 3)

by Mary D. Brooks

  “That single bed won’t fit the both of us.”

  Eva went to the very edge and patted the side for Zoe to come to her. Zoe took off her robe and spooned against Eva.

  Eva curled around her. “Much better,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, I think so too,” Zoe replied. “You didn’t sleep much.”

  “I can’t turn my brain off.”

  “That’s why you’ve been working long hours in the darkroom,” Zoe said.

  “It didn’t help.”

  “We won’t be in Larissa too long. I think maybe four days, and then we are out of there for good.”

  Zoe could feel Eva’s breath on her neck, and for a moment thought she had finally gone back to sleep.

  “No. We’ll stay for as long as it is necessary for you to do what you have to do.”

  “It won’t take me long to sign the papers, Evy.”

  “You have a wedding to go to.”

  “I don’t care about the wedding. We’re not staying in Larissa, but at Athena’s Bluff. It’s still too close, but we will be there for only a few days.”

  “Okay,” Eva said quietly. “I just don’t...you must think I’m a coward.”

  Zoe turned in Eva’s arms and looked at her. “I don’t think you are a coward. That’s the last thing I would ever think about you. I know it’s hard for you to go willingly into that place again. It was the reason I didn’t want to come back.”

  “I thought it wouldn’t be such a problem.” Eva brushed a strand of hair out of Zoe’s eyes. She cupped her cheek. “Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that I can do this and it won’t hurt, but it will.”

  “I know, but you do it anyway.”

  “I just can’t let it go.”

  “One day you will. One day it will be just like a really bad ache, but it won’t be so bad.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  “Yes.” Zoe nodded. “There’s an ache that doesn’t go away. It’s there all the time, but I just have to look at you and it’s not so bad. I think of the cabin and when I nearly lost you, and I get the overwhelming urge to scream, but I didn’t lose you.”

  “That’s because you were the one that saved my life. You were my guardian angel, Zoe. If you hadn’t brought Henry and the Resistance with you, it would have been over.”

  “I had no intention of letting some German loser take something that belonged to me,” Zoe said, trying to lighten the conversation.

  “A little possessive, aren’t we?”

  “Me? Possessive? Absolutely.” Zoe grinned. “I’m now changing the subject because it will get us both crying. I want to show you the farm. It’s outside of Larissa in Farsala, and it’s really pretty.”

  “Really pretty?”

  “Yes. Fields surround the farm house. Papa grew cotton. I want to show you the happiest place I knew even though I always wanted to leave.”

  “You always wanted to see what was past Mount Ossa.” Eva smiled.

  “You were past Mount Ossa.” Zoe tweaked Eva’s chin. “Isn’t life strange some days?”

  “It is. God was listening, and instead of you going to find me, I found you.”

  “Fate brought you to me.”

  “If you say so,” Eva replied sleepily. “What do you want at the farm?”

  “A book.” Zoe smiled. “Theo gave me a copy of Oliver Twist, and I left it in the chicken coop. Hope it’s still there.”

  Eva smiled. “Oliver Twist in the chicken coop?”

  “Yes. It’s one of my favourite books, and I want it back.”

  “Why is it in the chicken coop?”

  “Not exactly in the coop but under it. That’s where I left it the last time I was there.” Zoe closed her eyes for a moment. She felt Eva’s lips on her own, and she opened her eyes to find Eva’s eyes just inches from hers.

  “Then we shall go to the farm and get it.”

  “Can you do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go to sleep. Please.”

  “I will try.” Eva nodded and closed her eyes.

  Zoe turned and smiled as Eva pulled her body towards her and held her in her arms. Having Eva’s arms around her was the most comforting feeling. She brushed the tear that tracked down her face. Larissa had nightmares for both of them, and they were going to face them together.

  The incessant ringing of the alarm woke Zoe, and she lifted up her head to scowl at the clock that was on Eva's side of the single bed. She wasn't complaining, but the alarm bell was going to wake Eva, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen.

  Before Zoe could get out of bed, a long arm snaked out from under the blanket and smothered the alarm clock. Eva turned, her hair mussed up in a way Zoe found totally adorable.

  Eva smiled at Zoe. “I couldn't throw it on the floor. It's not ours.”

  Zoe grinned. Quite a few alarm clocks had been broken over the years, usually by Eva flinging them on the floor or throwing them out the door.

  “You are so adorable in the morning,” Zoe said, and kissed her soundly. “How are you feeling?” She snuggled up.

  Eva pursed her lips. “Better. I think the sleep helped. I know talking about it helped, and I know your hands on my body helped.”

  “I don't have a bad back, and your hands on my body help me a great deal,” Zoe whispered, nuzzling Eva's long neck and giving her a gentle nip.

  “If you keep that up, I don't think I'm going to make my eight-thirty meeting,” Eva said, a trifle breathlessly as Zoe slipped her hand under her singlet, cupped a firm breast, and gave it a gentle squeeze. She let out a small gasp.

  “What meeting?” Zoe whispered.

  “The one Mrs. Muldoon arranged...oh dear...”

  Zoe's other hand stroked her inner thigh.

  “Huh...Zoe, please stop.”

  Zoe gave her an evil grin. “You sure?”

  Eva lay back and groaned. “Huh, no. Yes.”

  Zoe slid the singlet off Eva’s shoulders, and kissed the now bare shoulder. “Are you quite sure?” She grinned as she placed gentle feather light kisses on Eva’s stomach and then worked her way downwards.

  Eva looked down at her and groaned.

  Zoe took pity on her and stopped her gentle teasing. “Tell Mrs. M to schedule meetings at a more reasonable hour.”

  Eva sighed. “And if she asks me why?”

  Zoe looked up into the now very alert twinkling blue eyes. She tweaked Eva’s dimpled chin. “Tell her the truth—because your wife wants to make love to you.”

  “I don't think she would understand.” Eva eyed the clock and sighed. She pushed back the cover and climbed out of bed. She looked back down at Zoe and sat down.

  She crooked her finger, and Zoe crawled closer and rested her head against Eva's thigh. Eva gave her a long and sensual kiss. “Good morning.” She kissed her again before releasing her.

  “Good morning.” Zoe watched Eva remove her panties. “I think you've lost some weight. I should check, you know.”

  “You just want an excuse to come and put your arms around me,” Eva replied, picking up a towel.

  Zoe grinned. “I don't need an excuse.” She got out of bed and wrapped herself around Eva.

  Eva disengaged herself from Zoe. “I need to go and have a bath.”

  “Want some help with it? I'm a good back scrubber.”

  Eva snorted. “You are wicked,” she muttered as she headed for the bathroom.

  Zoe chuckled. “And you are incredibly sexy.”

  Eva turned around and gave her a dazzling smile before closing the bathroom door.

  Zoe heard the click of the key locking and wondered if there was a spare key lying around.

  There was a gentle knock on the door.

  Zoe put on her robe and opened the door to discover a middle-aged woman with a fresh set of sheets in her hand.

  “Kalimera. I'm Evthokia.” She smiled.

  Zoe smiled back and opened the door. “Uh, my friend is in the bath.”

&
nbsp; “I just came to change the sheets and ask if you had any laundry you would like to have done.” Evthokia stripped the bed Zoe and Eva had shared and remade it. She noticed the other bed was already made up. “You didn't need to make the bed. It's okay to leave it. I will take care of it.”

  Zoe nodded while Evthokia stripped back the bed and replaced the sheets. “Um, what time do you normally come around?”

  Evthokia looked at her. “Every morning at seven-thirty.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes and sat down heavily on the seat as Evthokia went about her chores.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Artemis?”

  “No.”

  “Aphrodite.”

  “No.”

  “Persephone.”

  “No.”

  “Athena?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Zoe smiled as they walked up the walkway to the famed Acropolis. Other like-minded tourists, eager to see the Greek monument, surrounded them. Their morning’s banter about names for their not-conceived child had taken on an Ancient Greek feel to it when Eva started rattling off names.

  “You’re named after your maternal grandmother, right?”

  “Yes. Grandma Eva Mitsos.”

  “What if we call her Daphne?”

  “Do you want our daughter to go to school and be called Daphne?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Ever heard of Daffy Duck? Daffy Lambros?”

  “Not Lambros.”

  “Yes, she will have your name, Zoe. She will be your child.”

  Zoe stopped walking. “She will be our child. I don’t want to hear that from you again.”

  “Our child,” Eva corrected. “Well, our child won’t be burdened with a silly name like Daphne.”

  “That’s your mother’s name!”

  “Yes, and I don’t like this Greek naming ritual. See how silly it is that you have several thousand cousins called Maria.”

  “Several thousand?” Zoe giggled.

  “It has to be unique; it has to be hers.”

  “Who else’s would it be?”

  “The name has to mean something. It has to mean something to both of us.”

  “Oh. I think we need to think about that.” Zoe took Eva’s hand and held it. “Oh look! Athena’s Monument!”

  “You like Athena?”

  “Theo told me tales of the wise goddess Athena and of the monument in her honor. For a while I called myself Athena, because it was richer sounding than plain Zoe was.”

  Eva gazed at Zoe. “You don’t look like an Athena.”

  “Why? Was she taller?”

  “I don’t think she was half as beautiful as you are,” Eva whispered, earning herself a kiss on the cheek.

  The child in Zoe was in awe that she'd finally arrived at the site of one of her many long-held dreams. The sun shone brightly on the marble columns of the ancient monument. Zoe fingered the hand-knit light sweater she had been coerced into buying by one of the gypsy vendors on the way up to the monument. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen, but the gypsy was so insistent that Zoe gave in.

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t haggle with the gypsy. You are the Queen of Haglers.”

  “She ambushed me.” Zoe chuckled. “I think it’s too big for me, but it would look perfect on you.” She pulled the sweater out and grimaced. The multi colored pattern made her eyes hurt. Zoe doubted Eva would ever wear it. She'd paid twenty drachmas for it, and she had no idea why she had done it.

  “I hope you don't mind me saying this, but that thing is ugly.” Eva made a face.

  Zoe looked up. “Sure is. Want it?”

  Eva shook his head. “I wouldn’t ever want to be seen wearing that.”

  “You're no help,” Zoe muttered good-naturedly, and stuffed the sweater back in her knapsack.

  They went a few more meters down the walkway and then Zoe stopped, took out a pad and a pencil, and began to sketch.

  Eva wandered around for a moment. She took out her camera from her bag to shoot some photographs.

  A young man near Zoe glanced her way. “Excuse me, are you an artist?”

  “Yes,” Zoe replied as she sketched.

  “I love this place. It's so full of history,” he said, gazing at Zoe. “What’s your name, pretty lady?”

  “Zoe,” Zoe answered, her attention focused on the Acropolis and Eva, who had walked into her line of sight with her camera.

  “My name is Cosmas. Where are you from?”

  “We sailed from Australia.”

  “You must have missed having a culture that is so rich.”

  Zoe stopped sketching and looked at Cosmas with a frown. “Australia has a rich history. The Aborigine culture is one of the most interesting.”

  “They're savages. That's not culture. This is culture.” Cosmas opened his arms wide and pointed to the ancient buildings.

  Zoe shook her head. “They’re not savages. They are beautiful people who settled in Australia before the white man came along. They have so much beautiful artwork. Did you know that the Aborigines settled in Australia thousands of years ago, and their way of life was so gentle? I have a book about the “dreaming” if you want to read it. It's—”

  “No offense, but their culture doesn't compare to the accomplishments of Pericles, Sophocles, Plato, Philip, Alexander the Great. This is the cradle of civilization. We have a rich heritage. The English have nothing.”

  “When I was growing up in a little village, my brother told me tales of the Greek gods as well as other stories. I grew up loving my culture, but you have to look at what makes other countries great as well,” Zoe said. “You know about Queen Boudicca, don't you?”

  Cosmas snorted. “A woman who couldn't defeat the Romans.”

  “I guess you won't be a diplomat when you grow up, huh?” Zoe went back to her sketching.

  “So, where are you headed after this?”

  “Larissa.”

  “Ugly place.” Cosmas laughed. “I went there once with my father. It has to be the most backward little town on the map! No culture.” He sniffed. “It's a farming community, you know. If we hadn’t had to ride through to get to Thessalonica, I wouldn't have stepped foot in the place. Dirty and backward.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “It's not bad for a place that's over six thousand years old.”

  “Yeah, but it's not sophisticated like Athens. What's so special about it?”

  “I was born there.”

  “Oh.”

  “My parents were dirty and backward farmers, as were my brothers. We barbarians don't know much about the world, you see, but they died for this country,” Zoe said sarcastically. She wasn't sure why she let his opinion matter to her, but it annoyed her that he disrespected her hometown. She was sure her brothers would laugh at her for even bothering to get upset. “Next time you want to talk to a girl, learn some manners.”

  Zoe got up, and went to look at the ruins more closely, leaving Cosmas with a flushed face.

  “It’s not worth the effort.”

  “You heard that silly boy? Boys are so stupid.”

  Eva smiled. “Some are. Why don’t we go over there and we can forget about silly boys?” Eva took Zoe's hand as they stopped outside the Church of the Twelve Apostles to admire the architecture.

  “I think it's rather funny to have a church here.” Zoe put her hand out and touched the stones.

  “Why?”

  “Well, we've just passed the Altar of the Twelve Gods, the Temple of Zeus, the Temple of Ares, the Temple of Apollo, and then here we come to the church where the God is real and not a mythical being,” Zoe explained. “Don't you find it odd?”

  “Odd, yes, but the Greeks have never been a logical people.” Eva teased. “I don't think it would have served any purpose to demolish the old temples and obliterate the past to make way for the new.”

  “Hmm, true,” Zoe agreed. She looked around the area known as the Agora. It was an ancient marketplace where
the Greeks would trade and worship. The ancient site fascinated her.

  They wandered onto Areopagus Hill and climbed the steps, which were a little slippery from the overnight rain. Reaching the top, Eva put her arm around Zoe's shoulders and pointed to the view of the Agora.

  Zoe looked around her in awe and then looked at Eva with a huge smile.

  “What's funny?” Eva asked.

  “Michael told me the story about how Ares was tried here for the murder of Halirrhothios. I just found it funny that the others would accept his word.”

  Eva nodded. “Ares, the god of war and deceit. The old myths served a purpose, you know.”

  “They did? How?”

  “Well, when Saint Paul finally made it to Greece, he preached right here, and he spoke to the Athenians about an unknown God.” Eva looked around the area and tried to imagine the courage necessary to speak to the Greeks about a God they didn't know. “He stood down there,” she pointed to the square down below, “and he preached about Jesus and about God. Imagine, Zoe, this place was filled with Greeks all wanting to hear this Roman preach to them.”

  Zoe took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting the images form in her mind. “He was a braver man than I would have been,” she quietly said as she opened her eyes again.

  “He did what he was commissioned to do, love. I'm sure if you were given the job he was, you would do it magnificently.” Eva squeezed Zoe’s hand. “You put your heart and soul into everything, and I don't doubt it for a minute that you could do what Saint Paul did.”

  “I think the job would be easier if I had you by my side,” Zoe said. “With you, I can do anything.”

  “I think I’m biased when I say this, but you have more bravery than Saint Paul.”

  “You’re right—you are biased.” Zoe laughed. “Do you know all this exercise gets me in the mood?”

  “In the mood for what?” Eva asked. “Do you want some ice cream?”

  “No.”

  “Cake?”

  “No. Something far sweeter and delicious.”

  “Oh, I get it now. You want some baklava.” Eva took Zoe’s hand and they walked down the steps, stopping every couple of steps when Zoe leaned on her and whispered in her ear, causing Eva to laugh.

  Eva lay back on the crumpled sheets and let out a contented sigh. She loved the feel of Zoe’s naked body against her own. Zoe was burrowed against her side, letting her fingers lazily trace Eva's bellybutton. Eva played with Zoe's unruly red hair and put her arms around her.